Oktane18: Identity + You

Over the last 200 years, we’ve seen technology progress at an increasing pace. Okta’s customers are ahead of the curve when it comes to using any technology they need to change the world. Whether it’s ENGIE, a massive energy company in France, which uses blockchain technology to optimize consumption and maintenance of water, natural gas and electricity, or Dubai International Airport adopting biometric scanning to increase efficiency of traveler traffic, they are all connecting, collaborating and succeeding in the cloud, all enabled by Okta.

At Oktane18 last week, I was joined by some of our forward-thinking customers to talk about how they’re staying ahead of their competitors while keeping up with the trends and emerging technologies in their industries.

There’s a common, underlying theme in the success stories of our customers: the evolution of IT has seen it go from being a supporting function to a true driver of organizations’ success. Today, IT is what stitches everything together to help an organization or company thrive and fulfill their goals. For many companies – including Cardinal Health, JetBlue and 21st Century Fox, which have sprawling organizations and employees, contractors and partners that span continents, with terabytes of data in the cloud to protect – the effectiveness of IT and security teams can make or break a business.

Add to that a barrage of evolving threats from every direction, companies have to make informed decisions and operate in Zero Trust environments. This means enforcing security both at the perimeter and within an organization, and ensuring that only the right people have access to the right apps, technologies and information.

Customer after customer, we hear similar anecdotes and axioms: technology isn’t just the foundation of their companies or organizations; technology is everything, and that fits perfectly into Okta’s vision to enable any company to use any technology.

Frederic Kerrest is the COO and co-founder of Okta. He’s responsible for our day-to-day operations, working with employees, partners and customers to deliver on the company’s mission of leveraging technology to make companies more productive and secure.

Prior to Okta, Frederic worked at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. He also started and built the Latin America sales organization at Salesforce.com. Frederic currently serves as a mentor at the MIT Trust Center for Entrepreneurship and the Stanford StartX Accelerator program and a member of the Board of Trustees of The Ocean School in Los Angeles, CA.